Dassault Reaches to Australia New Zealand
September 12, 2013
I have lost track of Dassault, a firm which acquired Exalead a few years ago. Exalead dropped off my radar with its cloud approach to 360 degree information access. I do get an annual request for me to listen without compensation to a “briefing” about the Exalead technology. I have severe webinar fatigue, and I have a tough time differentiating the marketing pitches from different search vendors. As I approach 70 years of age, the diagrams strike me as interchangeable. The terminology used reminds me of a cheerleading session. The PowerPoints are little more than placards saying, “Big Data, Analytics, NoSQL, CRM. Go Team.” The only thing missing from the briefings is a band and hard data about strong revenue and profits generated by the company’s must-have products.
Search is repositioning in an effort to avoid marginalization. Most of the go-to customers already have up to five enterprise search systems. My hunch is that most large organizations are unaware of the total number of “findability” and “business intelligence” systems in their organizations.
Vendors, recognizing a saturated market, have had to either sell out (Brainware, Endeca, Exalead, Fast Search & Transfer, ISYS Search, and Vivisimo) or jump from one buzzword to another in a quest for additional venture funding and revenue.
Cheerleading is show business. Image courtesy of the US Department of Defense at http://www.defense.gov/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=44522
I read “Firstservis Partners Dassault Systèmes to Push Big Data App.” The write up said:
The 3DEXPERIENCE platform brings structure, meaning and accessibility to data across the heterogeneous enterprise information cloud and combines the sophisticated search, access and reporting typically associated with databases with the speed, scalability and simplicity of the Web.
More interesting to me is the reason for this jump to Big Data. According to the write up:
“Their decision to re-platform their business on EXALEAD applications was then validated by Gartner’s 2013 Magic Quadrant Report where the brand was named as the most visionary of enterprise search vendors,” he [Firstservis director, Andrew Young] said.
What I find interesting is that an azure chip consulting firm opened the eyes of Dassault to what it could do with Exalead technology. Now Dassault bought Exalead in 2010 for about $160 million. After three years, a third party has guided a scientific company with 11,000 passionate people, 1790,000 customers, 3,500 (3,501 I suppose if I count Firstservis), and “long term strategy” (See http://www.3ds.com/about-3ds/).
With the pundits and poobahs hoarse from repetition of the “Big Data, Analytics, and CRM” cheer, I found the story interesting and indicative of the challenges those with “enterprise search systems” face.
Will the fans show up for the game? Image courtesy of NOAA at http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/GEOID/GSVS11/images/Longhorn_Stadium_Flippable_Seats.jpg
My hunch is that enterprise search remains a problem. The marketing issue becomes a communication problem. When a company cannot find information, enterprise search is the culprit. Most firms have quite a bit of search experience. Dissatisfaction among users is the norm. So a new positioning is required not just by Dassault but by most of the vendors who used to be in the search business.
Enterprise Search: Finding Flounders Floundering
September 9, 2013
A founder is a flat fish. In today’s whiz kid world, “flounder” does not make one drool for a fish stew. “Flounder” means to the Free Dictionary, “to move or act clumsily and in confusion.” I made the connection to search as a result of a seemingly innocuous discussion on LinkedIn about improving search.
A flounder not yet out of water.
I am not sure about the rules for linking to LinkedIn content. I have to watch my Ps and Qs because two of the goslings and I learned on Friday, September 6, 2013, that some of the queries I launched from my research computer were not processed by Slideshare. Was this a glitch or some intentional action? I don’t know. To be on the safe side, I will not link to the thread called “How to manage queries having no relevant answers but still matching some terms.” If you are a LinkedIn customer, you can log in and locate the discussion using the LinkedIn “finding” system. How well with that work out for you? Well, that’s another search topic.
To recap the thread, a LinkedIn customer is responsible for an Intranet search system. When its users run a query, the system produces a results list which do not answer some users’ questions. There is term matching, but the content is not on point. I no longer like to beat the drum for precision and recall. We are now in the era of good enough search. Few take the time to create a vetted content inventory. When the search system is rolled out, no one really knows what’s “in” the index. The point that a query contains terms which match some content but makes users grouse is not new.
Caught by an unhappy user who happens to be the CFO figuring out why so much money was spent for a search system that did not work.
The fix, of course, is like trying to refuel an old fashioned propeller driven aircraft with a somewhat more modern jet powered tanker. The job is going to be tricky and may end with some excitement. Jets and prop driven aircraft like enterprise search and quick mixes might not be a happy combination like peanut butter and jelly.
In 2004, then Googler Dave Girouard said in eCommerce Times:
“The funny part is it’s easier to find box scores from the 1957 World Series than it is to find last quarter’s sales presentation in the enterprise. While Web search has gotten really good, enterprise search has stagnated, and that’s why we really believe it’s a problem that needs to be solved and that Google has a unique set of capabilities to solve it.”
Well, Mr. Girouard has moved on and Google is advertising on LinkedIn for yet another wizard to work on enterprise search. If Google cannot knock the ball out of the park, who can? Is HP Autonomy the go-to system? What about a low-cost option like dtSearch? Why not download Elasticsearch, Constellio, of one of the other open source solutions? Maybe a company should embrace a predictive solution from Agilex or Palantir?
LinkedIn: You Search or It Finds?
August 30, 2013
One of the ArnoldIT goslings manages my social media presence. We try to provide information via automation or by asking questions. The “Stephen E Arnold” profile provides some information, but the detail located at www.arnoldit.com/sitemap.html is not included.
I am not sure what my area of expertise is. As I approach 70 years in age, I have worked in fields as diverse as machine shop janitor to advisor to the world’s largest search and software company. Along the way, I have labored inside nuclear facilities, sat in meetings which considered the fate of Fortune 500 companies, figured out how to make an online database produce a profit, and running laps for a person with $9 billion in personal assets.
I am surprised when my social media gosling reports that people are endorsing me for a wide range of capabilities. The most popular is analytics, which is okay. But my focus in analytics is how to make money. My relative, Vladimir Ivanovich Arnold, was into fancy math, which is supposed to “run in our family.” Whatever. The people recommending me are those who are “linked” to me. My view is that when someone wants to be my LinkedIn pal, the person should be involved in some way with content processing. I don’t recall most of the people, but some of the names are familiar. I stick close to Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky, and avoid the bright lights and big city.
Am I a monkey in a cage for those who pay LinkedIn for access to my “content”? Image from Alamogordo.
I was not surprised to read “Why Am I Being Endorsed for Skills and Expertise I Do Not Claim on my Profile?” (Note: I have no idea if you will be able to view this community post on LinkedIn. Your problem to solve, not mine.)
The main point of the post is:
I am receiving notices that I have been endorsed for skills that I have not listed on my profile. I have over 20 years of experience and may done these tasks at some point, but these are not necessarily the same skills I want to highlight currently on my LinkedIn profile and I have not claimed expertise in these areas. Why are any of my contacts being asked to endorse me for skills I don’t want highlighted?
My answer to this question is, “Generate revenue.” But the most interesting item in this community thread comes from someone whom I assume is a LinkedIn employee, cheerleader, or amanuensis. Use the search function in your browser to jump to this snippet once you are in the community post I have cited, please:
Thank you all for the valuable feedback. Our team really appreciates it and we definitely take it into account as we continue to improve the user experience across all of our products and features. With that said, I wanted to clarify a few things regarding endorsements:
1. You can only be endorsed by a 1st degree connection (a LinkedIn member you already know are directly connected with), and you can always manage which endorsements to show.
Next Generation Content Processing: Tail Fins and Big Data
August 19, 2013
Note: I wrote this for Homeland Security Today. It will appear when the site works out its production problems. As background, check out “The Defense Department Thinks Troves of Personal Data Pose a National Security Threat.” If the Big Data systems worked as marketers said, the next generation systems would these success stories provide ample evidence of the value of these Big Data systems?]
Next-generation content processing seems, like wine, to improve with age. Over the last four years, smart software has been enhanced by design. What is your impression of the eye-popping interfaces from high-profile vendors like Algilex, Cybertap, Digital Reasoning, IBM i2, Palantir, Recorded Future, and similar firms? ((A useful list is available from Carahsoft at http://goo.gl/v853TK.)
For me, I am reminded of the design trends for tail fins and chrome for US automobiles in the 1950s and 1960s. Technology advances in these two decades moved forward, but soaring fins and chrome bright work advanced more quickly. The basics of the automobile remained unchanged. Even today’s most advanced models perform the same functions as the Kings of Chrome of an earlier era. Eye candy has been enhanced with creature comforts. But the basics of today’s automobile would be recognized and easily used by a driver from Chubby Checker’s era. The refrain “Let’s twist again like we did last summer” applies to most of the advanced software used by law enforcement and the intelligence community.
[Image file: tailfin.png]
The tailfin of a 1959 Cadillac. Although bold, the tailfins of the 1959 Plymouth Fury and the limited production Superbird and Dodge Daytona dwarfed GM’s excesses. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cadillac1001.jpg
Try this simple test. Here are screenshots from five next-generation content processing systems. Can you match the graphics with the vendor?
Here are the companies whose visual outputs appear below. Easy enough, just like one of those primary school exercises, simply match the interface with the company
The vendors represented are:
A Digital Reasoning (founded in 2000 funded in part by SilverLake. The company positions itself as providing automated understanding as did Autonomy, founded in 1996)
B IBM i2 (industry leader since the mid 1990s)
C Palantir (founded a decade ago with $300 million in funding by Founders fund, Glynn Capital Management, and others)
D Quid (a start up funded in part by Atomico, SV Angel, and others)
E Recorded Future (funded in part by In-Q-Tel and Google, founded by the developer of Spotfire)
The Price of News: The Post Deal
August 7, 2013
I have been following the flood of information about Jeff Bezos’ apparent purchase of the The Washington Post. I use the word “apparent” because it is not clear if Mr. Bezos or Nash Holdings LLC bought the newspaper. For the purpose of this Beyond Search item, let’s assume that a Bezos-controlled entity has the keys to the Lego kit with millions of blocks that the Washington Post represents. Building a profitable newspapers may be like taking the brightly colored blocks and assembling them in just the right way to build a cash machine.
Can Jeff Bezos build a money machine from the many Lego blocks that make up the Washington Post? Image from Lego Corp. at http://goo.gl/QG0xU2.
The obvious point is that Mr. Bezos, an Internet business superstar, sees riches where others see union hassles, declining advertising revenues, and “real” journalism about the most exciting place in the swampy area bordering on the Potomac.
Reuters’ take on the deal was interesting. The story “Amazon’s Bezos Pays Hefty Price for Washington Post.” Thomson Reuters rarely overpays for its acquisitions, so I interpreted the headline as a suggestion that Mr. Bezos’ financial skills are not up to Thomson Reuters’ standards. Both Thomson Reuters and Amazon have cost control challenges, and it is not clear which organization is better positioned for the economic storms which are forming on the horizon.
The Reuters’ story states:
The multibillionaire founder of online retailer Amazon.com Inc may have paid more than four times the price that the financial results of the Washington Post suggests it is worth.
Before the Reuters’ era, Thomson Corp. sold most of its newspaper properties. I wonder if some of the Thomson Corp. era executives are asking, “Why didn’t we meet with this fellow?” Too late now I suppose.
The other interesting angle on the Washington Post deal appeared in “Bezos Brings Promise of Innovation to Washington Post.” (Note: this link may go dead due to the pay wall stuff at the venerable newspaper.) The headline uses an interesting word “promise”. There is no guarantee that Amazon’s WalMart approach will work with “real” journalism. The write up says:
Google and Synthetic Biology: The Next Big Thing?
August 5, 2013
I may have learned something which Google watchers have known for years, since 2009 to be exact. On the other hand, I may have stumbled on tantalizing factoids, hires, and inventions which point to a new market initiative for Google.
I wrote a research summary for a fancy Wall Street-type outfit. That research became a footnote in a longer document destined for the institutional investor world. I then wrote a four-page summary for one of the outfits which pay me with love and sometimes money to write articles for “real” publications.
I want to point you to my hypothesis and the brief, public write up about some of my research findings. I want to set the stage or do theater majors call the mise en scène.
Google has attracted some big names in synthetic biology, hired the world’s leading proponent of man-as-a-cyborg, and founded the “moon shot” labs with the essentially unsearchable name of “Google[x] Labs.” The brackets wreck havoc with the now advanced searchless Google. The wonky “x” returns many, many false drops; that is, a query processor match which has little or no relevance to the user’s query. Coincidence? Probably not.
Google’s Singularity University and attached conferences explore quite a few forward-looking topics. Among the most interesting are those which focus on how advanced technology can do medical or human-enhancing things. Prior to one researcher’s presentation at the Singularity knowledge fest, the notion of putting a computer in one’s eye or using autonomous nanotechnology to repair faulty genetic strings was not officially on the Google agenda. Since those 2009-2010 presentations, synthetic biology is, based on my analysis of open source documents, both on the Google agenda and possibly the next big revenue push by the online advertising company.
Imagine the ad revenue from displaying personalized, context sensitive ads to folks wearing Google Glass’ next iterations: smart watches or contact lenses. These are sideshows, in my opinion, for the real purpose of the Glass investments. The main event is nanodevices for medical and pervasive computing functions.
As Google’s founders age, perhaps the nanotechnology will rescue a key engineer from a debilitating illness? Perhaps the nanodevices will allow Google to make each person a walking talking smartphone? No emasculating gizmo required. No silly eyeglasses necessary. The computer is not on the eyeball as a contact lens is. The computer is in the eyeball. Sound like science fiction? I no longer think that generic manipulation and fabrication is reserved for university or US government laboratories. Google has the staff, the money, and the business motivation to push costly, multi-disciplinary inventions from an experimental stage into the product channel.
The question is, “How quickly can Google move?”
Is it now time to think about Google as morphing into its next stage of corporate creature. Remember Google began as Web search. Then Google changed into an online advertising powerhouse. Next Google emerged as a dominant force in mobile phone operating systems. The future may be as one of the most important players in the field of synthetic biology.
You can dig into a few details at http://goo.gl/81cVEr. Disagree with me? Use the Comments section of the blog to explain why I am off base. Have information that extends my argument? Plug it into the comments section as well.
If you are interested in a for-fee (yep, you pay me) briefing on this synthetic biology at Google research, write me at seaky2000 at yahoo dot com. I correctly predicted Google’s mobile phone success in my 2004 Google Legacy monograph? Is it possible I am correct again or am I overlooking balloons and self-driving automobiles?
Stephen E Arnold, August 5, 2013, from Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky
Sponsored by Xenky
Finding an Optical Character Recognition Program
July 19, 2013
The I ran the following query for a client project yesterday: “OCR programs.”
I passed the query to Google, Yandex, and Bing in that order. What did I find?
There are 11 ads and 10 hits, one set of news items and one set of related search suggestions. Several the links pointed me to downloads which were too confusing to try. The other links pointed to information ranging from Google Groups to commercial companies’ products.
Here’s what Yandex delivered to me:
No ads and mostly general information, including a hit to TextBridge which is no longer current.
And Bing?
There were five ads, related searches in two places, and links to mostly “free” programs and general information sites.
The reason this is an important series of examples is that I have been reading some of the articles about Google’s somewhat disappointing earnings results. The numbers are huge, but when most search and content processing companies are struggling for growth, Google is the Sir Lancelot of search vendors. If Google can’t grow quickly, what does that say about Google’s business strategy, about other search and content processing companies, and the US economy? My takeaway is not much different from that expressed in USA Today. Yes, USA Today, what one of my goslings calls “McPaper.”
The story is “Google Earnings Clipped in Mobile Headwinds.” The main point is, in my opinion:
Concerns continue about so-called cost-per-click prices that advertisers pay Google for Internet-search advertising.
And then:
Google’s average cost-per-click, which includes clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of its network members, decreased about 6% in the quarter compared with a year ago. Analysts had predicted prices would drop about 3% in the period.
MBA Thunderbird Stress: Cash Lifeline and Dissention
July 9, 2013
I don’t think too much about MBAs. In my experience, I have found the exercise somewhat troublesome. I suppose I should be more open minded, but learning to do business and then getting a job telling folks how to run a business is not my cup of tea.
I prefer folks who are frustrated scholars of medieval literature or even a home economics major. These backgrounds offer some intellectual traction. I have learned a great deal by watching Martha Stuart, for example. I also enjoy working in references to the Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi into my analyses of search, analytics, and content processing.
I read with considerable interest two stories about the financial challenges facing the esteemed Thunderbird School of Global Management. The first item was a Businessweek story titled “Board Members Quit after Thunderbird Vote on For-Profit Partnership.” The notion that a team could not reach agreement on the hook up with an institution called laureate Education was fascinating. I thought the notion of rational decision making and consensus were part of the MBA tool kit. Since I am not an MBA, I am delighted my misunderstanding has been corrected by this case example.
I then noted the hard copy Wall Street Journal story in Marketplace called “Struggling Thunderbird Business School Finds a For-Profit Lifeline.” The July 8, 2013, was online here on July 9, 2013 but may not be soon.
The point of this story is that management of the world class institution seems to have suffered from the winds of change in the economic ecosystem. Enrollments are down so Thunderbird hooked up in a joint venture which will yield $13 million in cash and involve some pretty fancy forward looking cash. The number is pegged at $100 million.
PRatronizer Alert: Have Info for ArnoldIT? Proceed with Caution
July 4, 2013
I am not a journalist. My academic training is in medieval poetry in Latin. I was lucky to get out of high school, college, and a couple of graduate programs. Few people embraced my interest in indexing medieval Latin manuscripts. Among those who made the most fun of my interests were those in journalism school, electrical engineers, and people studying to be middle school teachers.
In graduate school, the mathematics majors found my work interesting and offered grudging respect because one of my relatives was Vladimir Ivanovich Arnold, a co-worker with that so-so math guy, the long distance hiker Andrey Kolmogorov.
I have, therefore, some deep seated skepticism about “real” journalists, folks who carry around soldering irons, and the aforementioned middle school teachers.
Last week I received a semi-snarky email about one of my articles. The person writing me shall remain nameless. I have assembled some thoughts designed to address his question, “Why did you not mention [company A] and [company B] in your article about desktop search. I think this was a for fee column which appeared in KMWorld, but I can’t be sure. My team and I produce a number of “articles” every day, and I am not a librarian, another group granted an exemption from my anti journalist, anti EE, and anti middle school stance.
Let me highlight the points which are important to me. I understand that you, gentle reader, probably do not have much interest. But this is my blog and I am not a journalist.
First, each of my for fee columns which run in four different publications focus on something “sort of” connected to search, online, analytics, knowledge management (whatever that means), and the even more indefinable content processing. I write about topics which my team suggests might be interesting to people younger and smarter than I. In short, PR people stay away. I pay professionals to identify topics for me. I don’t need help from you. I don’t need the PR attitude which I call “PRantronizing.” Is this clear enough? Do not spam me with crazy “news” releases. Do not call me and pretend we are pals. When a call came in yesterday, I was in a meeting with a law librarian. I put the call on the speaker phone and told the caller to know whom she buzzes before she pretends we are pals. The PRatronizer was annoyed. The law librarian said, “None of us on your team are that friendly to you. Heck, I don’t think you are my friend after four years of daily work.” My reaction, “That’s why you are sitting here with me and the PRatronizer is dealing with a firm, ‘Get lost.’”
Search and Content Processing Vendors: Me Too, Me Too
June 23, 2013
We just finished updating a broken Twitter function on the core Overflight system. We will add the fix to the text mining and taxonomy services early next week. Ah, we love Twitter.
In the course of working through the list of companies in Overflight, one of the goslings (pictured below) shared several observations with me. Here they are, and I present them for your intellectual stimulation. Remember. Verify observations, a step which is wise whether the big gosling (me) or a smaller gosling (programmers) generate.
An ArnoldIT-Xenky gosling at rest.
1. Webinars, Webinars, Webinars
According to the coding gosling, most search and content processing vendors are doing webinars. These come in several varieties, like roses I suppose. There is the “sign up and watch” version. There is the “catch us on YouTube or other video hosting service” type. There is the “audio only” either on an existing podcast show like Software Engineering Radio or the company’s tie up with a for fee out.
Is there webinar fatigue? On the part of the company trying to sell software licenses, webinars are apparently an adrenaline-charged sales opportunity. On the attendee side, I know I have webinar fatigue. But webinars won’t be going away any time soon. The cost of in person sales calls, traditional trade shows, and more deep thinking type of marketing are just not compatible with today’s go-go management time allocation calculus. Heck, shooting the breeze with PowerPoints or Keynote slides as visual hooks is a pretty low cost way to get the word out.
Do webinars sell? We have only anecdotal information, but we definitely have first hand experience with sign ups beginning at a good sized number and then after 15 minutes dwindling down to a hearty few nectar sippers.
2. Blogs
Most search and content processing companies have blogs. The problem, according to the goslings, is that most of these blogs are updated on an infrequent and/or irregular basis. The idea of a blog is so easy to conceptualize. Publishing content every day in a consistent, high-value manner. Well, that’s just not something whizzy high technology search and content processing firms embrace.
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